TechTip: Spooled Files and PDF, Part Four

[jdalglish70]

Thanks so much for the quick response! However, there were two parts needed for the tool explained in the article. The QAPF2PDF that you provided was one, could you provide the link, or download, for the other part? The part in the artcle that says "Download the content of the libtiff-3.7.2"... Thanks!

[Guest.Visitor]

To access the LibTiff link, I had to manipulate the HTTP address since I figured it was an old release at this point. Instead, use:
ftp://ftp.remotesensing.org/pub/libtiff/
This will give you a list of current releases. If you really want the 3.7.2 version, it can be found within the "Old" folder.

[jdalglish70]

Thanks for the suggestion! I had actually found the “old” section and downloaded the tiff-3.7.2.zip file (which had a folder called libtiff). But what I found is that not everything the tool needed was in there. The first thing missing was an object called tif_AS400.c, so I was not able to completely install the tool. MC Press Online was able to send me the exact download needed, so I was able to finally get the tool up and running. There are apparently problems posting that file in the forum, but once that is resolved, they plan to provide the link. Thanks again!

[Guest.Visitor]

After trying this all day yesterday and having difficulties, I have also asked that they send me the tiff-3.7.2 version they have. Running the REXX procedures, I had problems with fields not being defined or defined at the wrong length (TIFFFaxMainTable, TIFFFaxWhiteTable, and TIFFFaxBlackTable in tif_fax3sm.c). Hopefully that will solve my issues.

[jdalglish70]

That should fix it. Once I had the correct libtiff-3.7.2 file, everything compiled just fine.

[danielwebb]

Hi,

I too am trying to get the AFP2PDF tool to compile, and I'm struggling!! I've got QAFP2PDF.zip and a version of tiff-3.7.2 but I don't think I've got the right one.

would you possibly send me tiff-3.7.2.zip so I can compile it or let me know where you got your version from ?

Thanks Daniel

[V.Mack]

Attached please find the complete code for this article.

Victoria Mack
Executive Editor
MC Press Online

[danielwebb]

Nice work Victoria, thank you.

I downloaded the attachment "SpoolPdf - Four..zip", followed the instructions from the included word document 'pdf4.doc' (basically the text from the original article but I have trouble with the comments overlapping the article on that page) and hey presto, AFP to PDF conversion.

I'm very pleased with the accuracy of the conversion - it's using Host Print Transform so I shouldn't be surprised but nevertheless I am. The output almost exactly matches the print, and also the output from our favorite PDF generation tool SPOOLAMATIC by Gumbo. So it's a big tick for accuracy.

Speed is very good too - my independent tests indicate it takes practically no time at all, which is nice.

Caveats
Firstly output is only Black and white - no 32 bit CMYK FS45 support which is a shame but understandable given IBM's unenthusiastic stance on implementing colour printing in HPT.

Secondly File size: My test PDF came out at 38k for two pages, almost 5 times more than the SPOOLAMATIC output of 8k. That's because the tool is using HPT to generate a single snapshot image of each page rather than inserting all the different elements - text, fonts, barcodes etc. which leads us to...

Thirdly No Searchable text.

So for us it's a classic decision - low cost / low quality or high cost / high quality - and we're planning on using this tool to expand the choices we can offer our customers.


Thank you Giuseppe for putting together the original article and releasing this excellent tool, and thank you Victoria for curating the archive and keeping it alive.

Regards

Daniel Webb

[sphillips]

Hi,

I'm new in this forum, but I have the same issue: convert *AFPDS spool files into pdf format. I read most of this thread and it seems to be right for my problem. I've already downloaded libtiff 3.7.2 library... Can I have the permission to download QAFP2PDF.zip, too? Thanks in advance.

Sandro

[sphillips]

I downloaded the files above, and all works perfectly, now.
Thank you very much for your help!

Sandro